*After 20 frustrating minutes of trying, then another 15 later, I couldn’t send the initial email, so split it into 2 - and still no luck. Two days later, still trying to send part 1. This is gobbling up our internet minutes at a furious rate for no benefit. This has never happened before, so apologies if this is days later than expected. Others have experienced similar uploading problems and used alternative methods - not using Outlook.
* 12 days later, as per the two previously written, on line posts, still not able to upload, so once this blog, with pictures, gets up on the interweb, the others that have already been written will follow in fairly quick succession – hopefully.
CROCKS
Back on the coach and our excellent driver (Ray – and there are few Ray’s around on this. trip) and just a couple of kilometres back up the road to the Wetland’s centre. A free to enter display facility explaining about the local wildlife. I was somewhat staggered to see a massive wall chart of about 40 different Australian mosquitoes – and I wasn’t wearing any repellent. I survived.
We were running early and so Chris rang ahead to the Humpty Doo to let them know we’d be arriving for lunch a bit early.
Poor Chris. We all piled into the Humpty Doo Pub/Hotel and waited patiently whilst Chris tried to find out where we’d be eating. They had no knowledge of our booking – which came as a bit of a surprise, seeing as she’d been talking to them 30 minutes earlier. Seems that we were in the Humpty Doo Pub, but Chris had in fact booked with the Humpty Doo Tavern… Whoops.
No problem, Back on the coach again and another couple of kilometres up the road to Humpty Doo – and its tavern, where we did indeed have a reservation. Chris had prearranged with them an option of the a la carte, the special of the day at $15 or a local tasting plate. I was looking forward to the local tasting plate, but on arrival, it was displayed as a tasting plate for 2 at $25… Oh what the heck. Paula didn’t fancy it and opted for a chicken wrap and chips – which turned out to be enormous and I stuck with the tasting plate anyway, on my own.
We were fairly early in the ordering queue thank goodness, as some people had to wait a while for their food.
So what was on the tasting platter? Top right in the pic, was Cajun crocodile. This was in tiny strips and ironically, exactly as the crocodile sausages we had back in Adelaide a few years back when we did the houseboat river trip, the predominant taste was salt! A little chewy, but it could have been anything. Front on the pic were 4 pieces of battered barramundi (a local fish), but as is often the case with battered fish, difficult to identify exactly what the fish actually, is as the batter is quite dominant. The star was probably the thinly sliced and marinated kangaroo. The salad was OK but I did appreciate the beer battered chips from Paula’s plate. They were very moreish but I could only take a nibble at the chicken in the half wrap that Paula couldn’t manage. The ‘Meadow’ draught cider was nice and complemented the meal well.
I went to the rest room and had a mini accident, (no, not that sort of accident). I thought I’d wander outside into the precinct. However, what I assumed was an open doorway turned out to be a massive sheet of floor to ceiling glass and I walked straight into it, smacking my forehead, nose and left hand pretty hard. Fortunately, no blood, but I thought that a safety bar across, or frosting, was mandatory these days, but obviously not in the Northern territories of Australia. That knocked me for a minute or two, so I returned the table and then back to the coach. Once again, a full complement of passengers, on time.
The consensus was that a call to the Casuarina Shopping Mall was useful and so it was. I managed a 4 pack of Bunderberg ginger beer and Paula bought some mints, as she felt a bit dizzy earlier in today and we wondered if it could be low blood sugar, or maybe even vertigo?
For the final time, everyone on the coach before time, with a fair few clinking bottles, showing that many had indeed visited the bottle shop.
Back at the dock, past experience has been that the port scanner people were quite tough, so when they opened a gate straight through to the ship, we took it! We volunteered to carry a couple of bottle of wine through for Dave and Sandie. The bottles of ginger beer in the knapsack, didn’t trigger any alerts, but the two wines in a plastic bag meant a meet with the staff manning the alcohol table. With just 2 bottles and we hadn’t brought any on in Sydney, we were straight through. Dave wasn’t as fortunate as he had a few more, so had to pay the corkage of $15. We found out later that at least one other had gone through the shore scanner and whoever was supposed to be manning the corkage table must have nipped off, so they paid nothing. Win some, lose some.
Back to the cabin and Paula just crashed for a couple of hours, so missed the sailaway at the usual meeting place, the rear of deck 11. There were a lot there. Many grinning from ear to ear and clutching their spoils. Probably the busiest I have ever seen. It was only then that I found out that I‘d grossly underpaid Chris, so I put that right, sneaking back to the cabin and out again without waking Paula.
We missed the one show of the evening, Donna Campbell’s tribute to Dolly Parton, which we have seen before.
Paula made it to dinner but didn’t eat much. Just a soup and a fruit drink. I had also hoped to cut back (a bit), but the lure of a surf and turf (and with extra prawns thanks to Jo) was too good to resist and for the first time on this cruise, opted for the cheese platter, but Paula didn’t take much, so I had to finish it.
Paula had perked up a fair bit and we met Jim and Marie (from NZ) in the atrium and they persuaded us to join them for a dance or four, then we got chatting to a couple of ladies, one from Takapuna, who had at some stage attended Ian’s dance class, which is where I started, plus her friend from NSW. They were bemoaning the lack of male dance partners.
Bed at midnight and clocks back another half hour. I think that now makes us Auckland -3hrs.
More sea days ahead before Kota Kinabalu on Saturday July 2nd. So that must be another 4. From then on, to Yokohama, July 21st, never more than a day or two at sea between each port. Keeping up with the blog will be even tougher, but as the internet connection seems very erratic, who knows? At this rate, we’ll be looking for free WiFi ashore, something we have never had to resort to in the past.
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